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I took a bit of a jaunt down memory lane the other night – I rewatched Scream. Two minutes into the opening scene I had a startling realisation: I still knew the film pretty much word for word, even after all these years. Talk about a misspent youth: I spent hours watching, rewatching and quoting this teen slasher. Where was the inspirational English teacher pushing me to read the complete canon by the age of 17?

As a 14 year old I coveted Drew Barrymore’s amazing blonde wig, I thought Skeet Ulrich was just about the hottest thing in the world and set upon a long spell of scary movie watching so that I could ‘get’ all of the in-jokes and references. Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, even Psycho thanks to Skeet’s Anthony Perkins’ quote. I became a regular at the local video store and sought out all of the classics from the horror section. I was the Scream equivalent of a Twi-hard.

As a 25 year old I still covet Drew Barrymore’s amazing blonde wig, but I am not quite so big on Skeet Ulrich. It was strange to realise all of these actors were my age now when they were playing teenagers. I know I probably read that in a TV Hits magazine at the time, but I was certain if Skeet and I met, we would get along just fine. The technology in the film dated it pretty seriously too, Skeet’s cellphone was a brick and Neve’s computer looked like something from Doogie Howser. And seeing teens without iphones or Blackberrys was more unsettling than the fake blood.

But it wasn’t all bad – the killer’s mask was based on Munch’s painting! It was a satire! It was self-aware and ironic! Nick Cave was on the soundtrack!

But I have no exclamation marks for the announcement that they are making another sequel: Scream 4. Excuse the pun but that is serious overkill.